On Sunday, three members of Newport & District Running Club took on the Chester 10k, a popular annual road race. It was Dave Thomas’ second 10k race in 8 days, and he sent us this report of how he got on:

I took part in Chester 10k today following on from last week’s 10k in Nantwich last week. I had an aim to finish in under 45 minutes. On 3rd March, I went on a slow long 17.35 km run; on 4th March I did a 45 minute Hyrox session followed by a 5km cool down run. On March 5th, I had an 11km tempo training run with my daughter, then I rested until race day, and my intention was to run 4:30/km and finish in under 45 minutes.

Dave Thomas after the finish

I ran a perfectly planned race; at the 5k point I was on track at 21:52 minutes and finished with a chip time of 44 minutes, 50 seconds, gun time 45:06. But I much preferred my “Strava” time of 44:28 minutes! 

Chester 10k had a high entry number and the racers were split up into three different start waves 09:00 I was in the 09:30 wave and a following wave starting at 10:00.

Dave Thomas was also giving motivation to a fellow runner!

The lady running next to me (#3258 in the photos) was aiming for 44:30, it’s always good to have a chat with your fellow runners to gauge their pace and finish place. She had more stamina at 8k, and continued to leave me; she finished 43:30 so I helped her to stay focused in the slog between 3k – 8k.

Dave Evans

Dave was accompanied in the race by fellow club members Dave Evans and Ben Roper, with Dave finishing in 48:17, coming 1515th out of 7,317 overall participants. Ben Roper finished 5126 overall in a time of 1:07:00.